Product Review: Oculus Quest VR Headset

(Montanita - Ratatat)

Virtual reality is something that's been tossed around in movies and literature for decades now. The prospect of putting a headset on and transporting yourself to another world without having to leave the comfort of your home has been something people have been curious about since the early days of science fiction.  Yet, for all of our fascination with it, VR has not had an easy birth or childhood.  For years, the technology just wasn't up to the task of bringing us the experience that we wanted.  VR was a gimmick, grounds for a few minutes of amusing special effects, but little more.

That might all finally be starting to change now.

My own experience with VR started with Microsoft's Holo-Lens augmented reality glasses. They fit poorly, the display within them was poor at best, and their practical applications were very, VERY limited.  From there, I went to the Samsung Galaxy Gear.  For the most part, this was also a gimmick, but unlike the Holo-Lens, the display and head tracking were actually very good.

Then, as he so frequently does, my very good friend, Lord Hotness, called me up and asked me if I wanted to try his new VR setup that he'd put together.  I said yes, and was introduced to my first fully functional, high-powered virtual reality experience at the hands of the HTC Vive and a monster of a PC running Windows 10 and a graphics card roughly the size of a Volkswagon Beetle.

And it was good.

Graphics were smooth, audio was phenomenal, tracking on the hand controllers was spot on, and I could move freely in his VR playspace without worrying about the walls.  For the first time, I was able to truly get lost in the world that I was exploring.  The cost for this experience?  Around $2,200.  VR was possible, it just wasn't cheap, which means it wasn't ready to be a household technology.

Then I heard about something called the Oculus Quest, a VR headset capable of playing the vast majority of titles that were already available for existing VR systems...without a computer.

And for 1/4th the cost.

I was stunned when I heard this, and then immediately after that, I was dismissive.  Right up until I saw OG Mythbuster Adam Savage praising it and demonstrating it's capabilities on a YouTube video.  Then I got my wallet out.

Two days later, it arrived, an inexpensive VR rig that promised very nearly the same experience as a rig four times its price without any of the wires to get in the way.

Does it deliver?  Could the Oculus Quest really be -that- good?

THE SHORT VERSION:

Yes.  And then some.  This is a watershed device.

THE VERY LONG VERSION:

This is all Lord Hotness' fault.  All of it.  I'd done the VR thing, had a good time, and went on with my life.  I'd done group VR at a VR parlor, blasting zombies in Arizona Sunshine with three of my good friends.  I'd done the Aperture Science Lab tour.  It was cute, but it certainly wasn't worth the price tag and the space that was necessary to really enjoy it.  I'd walked away from it.

Fast forward almost two years, and the time finally came to see if my wife would enjoy VR.  Once again, Lord Hotness was there with the latest and greatest wireless VR setup.  While my wife launched personality cores into the various dark corners of the Aperture lab, we quietly discussed the more technical aspects of the technology.  Then she was done, and we got ready to leave.

At which point His Lordship casually mentioned that he had Beat Saber and wanted to know if I'd give it a spin.

Now, for anyone who doesn't understand what Beat Saber is, check this out:

That's swatting blocks out of the way using lightsabers.  In virtual reality.  I'm a giant nerd who LOVES music.  A lot.  This is like the holy grail.  I played it for almost 30 minutes straight, realized I was sweating my ass off, and gave His Lordship his headset back.

Then I started really thinking about just how much money I was willing to spend to play Beat Saber.  I didn't really want to spend $2,200 for a video game, especially when that cost included a computer that I would never use for anything other than said game.  I already have a very nice Mac that I work off of, and I really don't play many games on PC anymore.  I could buy a used Playstation 4 and a used Move headset and spend around $800 instead, but...that was still a lot of money, and now I'd have to contend with wires, something I wasn't keen on at all.  If I was going to do VR, I wanted the top shelf experience that I had in my friend's VR room.  

Then I stumbled onto a video of Adam Savage making custom attachments for his Oculus Quest controllers that looked like lightsaber hilts, and though, "Wait a damn minute...how much does THAT thing cost?"

Then I started freaking out a little because of how cheap the Oculus Quest was compared to literally every other option out there.  There -had- to be a reason.  It had to be lacking somehow.  Sure enough, I started spotting differences, but most of them weren't really important.  A few did stand out though:

- The Field Of View of the Quest is rated at 90 degrees.  FOV for other high-end headsets like the Index and HTC Vive Pro have 110 degrees.

- The refresh rate of the displays inside of the Quest is 72hz.  It's either 80 or 90hz depending on who you ask for the Index and Vive.

- High framerates aren't really possible on the Quest due to the limited hardware that powers it.

- Multiplayer between the Quest platform and other PC-based platforms doesn't appear to be natively supported.  

None of that stopped me from ordering it, and now that I've had a chance to take it out for a drive, here's what I can tell you:

- You won't notice the FOV.

- You won't notice the refresh rate.

- You won't notice the frame rate.

You won't notice any of these things because you'll be too swept up in what you've just bought:  Truly wireless VR, for $400.  Let's talk about this thing, shall we?

It's important to understand that prior to picking the Oculus Quest up, my VR experiences had all been with top flight VR hardware like the HTC Vive Pro and Valve Index, so I was really worried about the overall drop in quality that I'd see in the Quest.

I needn't have been.  The Quest feels absolutely on par with the Vive Pro.  There are aspects of it where you can tell that Oculus cut costs, such as the headset fitting system.  It's really just straps and velcro, but none of it feels cheap or poorly implemented.  It's the equivalent of using a pencil to write in space rather than engineering a zero gravity pen.  The VR hardware itself feels solid, robust, and high quality.  The edges of the hardware are covered in a kind of grippy fabric and the front plate feels like high quality plastic.  

Inside, the optics are startlingly clear, and can be adjusted using an easy to find IPD slider on the bottom of the headset.  Buttons for power and volume have good action and response without being loose or feeling cheap.

The controllers for the Quest feel incredible.  Having used both the Vive Pro and Index controllers, I find that the Quest's button arrangement gives flexibility without overcomplicating things.  There's not too much to fiddle with at all here, and what there is feels sturdy.  As a bonus, the controllers each run off of a single AA battery that is housed inside of a battery compartment that is held closed with magnets.  This seems like a little thing, but it means that the controller feels like a single, solid piece of design and you don't end up with a battery door scratching at your hand.  It's a very nice touch.

Beyond the headset and the two controllers, the Quest comes with batteries, a generously long USB-C cable, charging brick, and a startlingly thick bit of user manual.  

When I first put the Quest on, I was worried about the fit of the headset around my nose.  There was a noticeable gap where the bottom of the front of the headset ended and it met my face.  light from the outside world gets in there when you move your eyes down to look at your nose.  How would that make games look?

Then I turned the headset on and completely forgot about that gap.  The internal displays are GORGEOUS at a whopping 1440x1600 PER EYE.  That's actually more than what you get in its big brother, the Rift, and it shows.  Any doubts that I had about it being 'cheap' hardware vanished immediately.  Something else I noticed right away was the audio.  It was clear and crisp, and I had...no idea where it was coming from at all.  This was a pleasant surprise, because folks bag on this thing's audio all the time online.  Everyone gripes about how you need to hook headphones up to it, and for casual play, it's perfectly fine.  Is it as good as the HTC Vive Pro?  No.  It's more than passable though.

Setup was a breeze, though it was a bit...unorthodox.  You don't connect the Quest to a PC.  You actually have to connect it to a phone for its initial setup, though once this is done, you never have to touch a phone again.  That aside, once you download the Oculus app from your app store, setup was quick, easy, and very intuitive.  Everything woke up, paired, and just...worked.

Someone at Oculus must have listened with regard to account registration.  When the Quest first launched, you were required to link it to Facebook in order to set your device up.  This has, thankfully, been changed.  You still need Facebook for easier social integration but it's no longer required to use the device.  You're also no longer required to enter a payment method in 'just in case'.  All you need is an account that you set up, a WiFi connection, and you're off to the races.

Because the Quest is truly wireless, you have the option to configure it for either stationary play or to dictate the boundary that you're playing within.  Oculus refers to this as the Guardian Zone, and the mechanism for configuring it is slick as hell.  Cameras on the rig pass video straight through to you so that you can see the world outside of your headset.  Then you simply use your controller like a spray paint can and mark off the parts of the room that it's acceptable to play within.  The Quest can even remember the Guardian setups from multiple rooms!  Ideally, Oculus wants you to have six feet on all sides of your person in order to play within a room, but you can play in around four feet if you're careful.  That's sort of what the Guardian feature is for, and it works VERY well.

The interface for the device is intuitive and easy to use, if a bit sparse.  You wish that there were just a few more options for customizing your workspace.  You have your standard library browser, app store, settings menu, and an internet browser.  The internet browser is relatively functional, but it takes up a startlingly small amount of real-estate in your virtual workspace.  You can make text smaller or larger, but there really should have been a way to increase the size of the overall window.  Still, who's using this thing to browse the web, right?

The Quest is ... an incredible device.  It's doubly incredible when you realize that someone took the experience of a $2,200 gaming rig and hardware, shaved a few things off, made it wireless, and figured out how to sell it for a pittance.  The Quest is, for all intents and purposes, powered by a Snapdragon-equipped cellphone.  All of the insanity that it's capable of, and a cellphone is doing it.  

That. Is. BONKERS.

This is one of those devices that really makes you take a step back and admire where we are in the realm of technology right now.  We can produce things like this that are reasonably affordable while still being this high quality and SO POWERFUL.  The Oculus Quest isn't perfect.  The experience isn't quite as nice as you get from a high end VR rig.

That doesn't stop it from being absolutely remarkable, and worth every bloody penny.